


A Fairy Tale for Everyone

by crookedspoon



Series: Feed Me, Also, River God [25]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, Gen, Hospitals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-16 09:10:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3482585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While stealing food and valuables from the sickies, Selina and Ivy make strange discoveries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fairy Tale for Everyone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WildAndFreeHearts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WildAndFreeHearts/gifts).



> This got a bit longer than the suggested word limit. I hope you can forgive that. The latest episode answered the question of how the girls could meet some of the other characters, and inspired this. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Also fills "Hey, it's that guy: Minor characters" at ladiesbingo.

Hospitals are the perfect place to go on a run. They have everything: food, clothing, shelter, and if you're really good, even drugs and medical supplies that you can sell for a good price. (Selina only takes as much as she can carry undetected, hardly anything the staff would miss at all.)

And the best thing? Unless there's a sickie who's also a criminal, the security is so lax it's laughable. The place is filled to bursting, and everyone's too busy with damage control – be it saving lives or calming relatives.

It's like paradise for a petty thief. Selina rifles through the bedside tables for small change and the wardrobes for shoes and handbags and everything not valuable enough for storage in a safe. Sometimes, a nurse or another patient catches her, but she pretends to be the niece of Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so, sent to retrieve some of their goods and is this not room XYZ, she must have made a wrong turn somewhere. No one is ever suspicious of little girls.

She's not the only one to have discovered this.

"Who's the new girl?" Selina asks Ivy when they meet up in the cafeteria.

"Oh, her?" Ivy nods toward the blonde who's trailing her like a lost puppy. "She caught me going through some old dude's stuff. Came out of the bathroom and whacked me with one of the tomes she had lying around."

Selina rolls her eyes. "I told you: always check the bathroom."

"Anyway," Ivy ignores her. "You should have seen him. Missing an arm and a leg. He has prostheses for both, but wasn't wearing them when I was there. It looked so strange."

"Was he in a war or something?" Selina asks the girl.

"No idea." She shrugs. Her voice is high-pitched, grating. "But it's not nice of you to talk about my gramps that way, like he's some freak in a sideshow."

"You said he wasn't your grandpa," Ivy points out.

"He is now. I adopted him."

"You can't do that."

"Who says I can't? People adopt kids all the time. Why shouldn't I be able to do it the other way around? He needs someone to look out for him."

Selina blinks, confused. "That's... not how it works."

"If he's not your grandpa," Ivy rejoins, "who is he? There was a chair by the bedside with a blanket and sweets on it. Looked like you've been staying there for a bit."

"Yeah, I read to him at night. His name is Borgman, but that's about all I know of him."

"What do you mean that's all you know?" Selina wonders if this girl really is stupid or if she just acts that way for fun. "You read to him, but don't know who he is? He could be a rapist or a murderer, and then what?"

"Does it matter? What's he gonna do? He's been out cold for weeks, the nurses say – probably months. He might never wake up and even if he does, he'd be too weak to lift his fingers, not to mention clock me over the head."

"Then why bother staying at all? He's never going to thank you for it."

"I don't need thanks, I need a place to crash. Coma patients are perfect. They don't tell on you when you introduce yourself as their granddaughter. The nurses seem okay with me keeping him company as long as I don't cause any trouble. An all-around win-win situation if you ask me."

"Don't you get bored?" Selina asks.

"Sometimes. But unlike Mr. Borgman, I'm not confined to the bed and can wander around whenever I wish. I've been exploring this city a bit, when I needed some fresh air, trying to feel my way around."

"You mean, you're not from around here?"

The girl's pigtails sway as she shakes her head.

"Speaking of sights," Ivy interrupts. "Want to see something creepy?"

Both girls do, the blonde because she likes being spooked and Selina because she wants to find out what Ivy could possibly find creepy. Ivy leads the way through the hallways, up and down staircases, until Selina wonders if they've covered every square meter of the hospital.

They stop in front of an intensive care unit, where a boy a little older than them writhes in his bed, screaming.

"What's up with him?" Selina asks.

"I don't know. But I saw your detective friend checking in on him from time to time."

The new girl presses her nose against the glass, intensely curious. "Come on, let's go inside."

"Are you crazy?" Selina asks but before she can stop the girl she has already slipped inside the room. The boy's screams grow louder and he seems unable to decide which side of the bed to disappear into.

"It's okay," the girl says, although you can barely hear her over the noise. "I'm not gonna harm you."

Selina follows inside, staying close by the door. The boy's eyes flicker around the room as though he's following a fly's path, or else hallucinating something she can't see.

"Gee, look at his heart-rate," the girl points to the monitor that shows rapidly spiking curves. She seems to take a morbid interest in everything the machines tell her about the boy's condition. "How long has he been like that?"

"I don't know," Ivy says. "He's yelling at the top of his lungs whenever I walk past. Though once he passed out mid-scream. I could feel my ears ringing with the sudden silence."

Selina sees a shadow in the corner or her eyes and jumps when the door opens behind them. A big woman in scrubs frowns at each of them in turn.

"What are you doing? You shouldn't be in here."

The new girl gasps. "Pardon us. We're his friends. He hasn't been to school for a while and when we heard he was in hospital, we were so worried! What's wrong with him? Will he be okay?"

Selina's impressed at how convincing she sounds, as if all of them have known each other all their lives and not just for a few minutes.

The nurse eyes them warily, but explains the boy's ailment: he's in a constant state of terror and needs to be sedated or his heart will give out. That is what she is doing here, preparing a shot. The boy struggles, but shortly after the nurse administered it, he settles down and falls asleep.

"You should leave now. His body is under a lot of stress and needs every bit of rest it can get."

"Are we allowed to come back some other time?" the blonde asks. "Or do you think his family would object?"

His family can't object, though; he no longer has one. He's an orphan like Ivy. This is not a big surprise in Gotham, which breaks up and kills every family sooner or later.

As soon as the nurse is gone, the girl dashes off too.

"Hey, where are you going?" Ivy calls after her.

"I'm fetching my books from old Borgman," she returns. "I figure he can go without a fairy tale for one night. This boy is greater need for a happy ending."


End file.
